Confiture de lait

If there’s one thing nicer than Murphy’s Seacláid (chocolate) Ice Cream, eaten straight from the tub beside the fire (yep, it’s still cold in Ireland!), then it’s got to be that self same cold, intensely flavoured ice cream topped with great generous spoonfuls of creamy sweet/salty confiture de lait. Perfect for an Easter treat! Literally translated as milk jam, confiture de lait is a truly luxurious, indulgent toffee caramel sauce, similar to the Argentinean dulce de leche, and often used as a spread for bread, or even to sandwich cookies together.

I picked up this jar of confiture de lait when I was wandering around Beauvais airport in France before heading home to Dublin after a wonderful surprise weekend in Paris. I had come across a description of it before on Clothilde’s mouthwatering Chocolate and Zucchini blog so, when I saw it, I couldn’t walk away, adding the jar to a haul which included large quantities of cheese, wine, chocolate, salted caramels, cider, bread, rilettes, Calvados, garlic and herbs. It must have got hidden in the cupboard after we got home because I only got the brainwave of using it to top ice cream the other night. Well, it only just survived the opening night, the Boyfriend sneaking heaped spoonfuls, long after the ice cream had gone back to the freezer. It quickly went back into hiding, until the next time!

I’ve yet to try making it at home but David Lebovitz has a recipe for it here. Methinks that will come in very handy when the jar (quickly) runs out…

4 Responses

ah yes, confiture de lait. Three jars of it minimum every time I’m in France. Bonne Maman do a very nice version. I wish they’d sell it here. I have a jar of dulce de leche which I bought in Superquinn, but I do prefer the French version.

I didn’t realise that you could get dulce de leche in Superquinn – I’ll have to do a search for that! But I suspect you’re right about the French version being better. Wonder why they don’t sell the Bonne Maman confiture de lait over here. I’ve only recently started coming across their little baked custards – albeit only in Dunnes on Georges Street. Very random distribution of nice foods, for some reason.

They only sell the tip of the iceberg in terms of Bonne Maman products here. I have long ceased wishing for things…the other part of a French supermarket which I would kill to see replicated in Ireland is the refrigerated section. I always have a nice long shopping list when I go over.There’s a couple of flavours of dulce de leche floating around Superquinn in addition to the straight one – I’ve seen a banana flavour(ed) one and, also, I think coconut. I found it during pancake week but was interested to notice they still had some the week before last, at least.

When I was an au pair in Chamonix, many years ago, I spent many an afternoon wandering around the French supermarkets (not much else to do in your spare time there!) but, without a kitchen to experiment in, I didn’t have much scope for experimentation. Next time in France, I must drag the Boyfriend to the supermarkets for a proper survey.

Warning: A non-numeric value encountered in /var/www/vhosts/106/123832/webspace/siteapps/WordPress-61955/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 63